glad [OE] The meaning of glad has weakened over time—it originally meant ‘bright, shining’ (it shares a common root with German glatt ‘smooth’ and Latin glaber ‘smooth, hairless’), then had the sense ‘delighted and rejoicing’, but nowadays just means ‘pleased’. If you are in your glad rags, you are dressed in your smartest clothes. The expression was first used in American English at the end of the 19th century, about the same time that glad eye, ‘a look intending to attract the opposite sex’, first appeared in British English. See also happy.